Here is a note to mark the end of twelve years in East Asia (China 1998–2000, South Korea 2000–2007, China 2007–2010). Well, I was indeed thrown out of China on the cue of turn­ing 65, regard­less of being awarded a PhD a few months before. My employ­ers in a joint Chi­nese-Aus­tralian ven­ture were inef­fec­tive (inert?) on this mat­ter in chang­ing the mind of China’s all-pow­er­ful and murky Pub­lic Secu­rity Burea. My stu­dents, at least, were indig­nant.  These links to a farewell note from one class, and from one stu­dent, can put this more elo­quently than I can. Here is a link to my farewell speech to the Mid­dle King­dom, which actu­ally never got made thanks to clever oblit­er­a­tion by a KTV party. In vain I made three short, shaky videos to prove that I wasn’t entirely decrepit: one in my class­room, Teach­ing is Fun; on a speech to grad­u­at­ing stu­dents, The Jour­ney of a Pas­sion­ate Skep­tic; one of me run­ning, Born 1945 and Still Run­ning Strong. Naive of course – no bureau­crat is inter­ested in actual real­ity.  Con­tinue read­ing →